As everyone should know by this point, there’s absolutely no logical or historical basis for the idea that people have the right to walk around fully armed without any restriction at all. The NRA only took up this position as part of white backlash in the 1970s, Ronald Reagan supported gun control when guns meant armed Black Panthers, the American West of the 19th century was filled with towns that banned guns except for law control, there’s zero evidence that the Founders believed anything even remotely approaching what the NRA is arguing, etc., etc. Among the laws that restrict guns are hunting laws.

Rep. Mike Thompson, the California Democrat charged with crafting gun safety policies in the House of Representatives, keeps talking about ducks.

More specifically, duck hunting.

“Federal law prohibits me from having more than three shells in my shotgun when I’m duck hunting. So federal law provides more protection for the ducks than it does for citizens,” Thompson said earlier this month during a panel discussion on gun violence at the liberal Center for American Progress.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, also on the panel, was delighted by the line. “That’s a very powerful point,” Emanuel said. “My instinct is we’re gonna hear more of this line going forward.”

As it turns out, federal law places strict regulations on the types of firearms that can be used when hunting migratory birds, rules hunters have abided since the 1930s. Duck hunters are only allowed to use a shotgun, 10 gauge or smaller, that carries no more than three shells. If the shotgun carries more than three shells, the hunter is required to “plug” the gun so that only three shots can be fired before reloading.

Hunting laws have restricted gun use going back to the 1890s or early 1900s. These laws were controversial at the time because they restricted the killing of animals by working-class people, but in the modern context these laws are completely accepted. And they are a useful evidence point when it comes to gun control. There’s plenty of precedent to control types of guns, ammunition, hunting seasons, etc.

Of course, the response to this will probably be jihad against hunting laws. After all, it’s not like gun advocates are afraid of owning the crazy. Take Gayle Trotter, a conservative activist and gun extremist. Testifying before the Senate this week, Trotter argued that women needed guns to protect themselves from scary home invaders and would-be assaulters.

“An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon,” said Trotter, a mother of six. “And the peace of mind she has … knowing she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals.”

Thing is, Trotter also advocates for policies that promote violence against women.

Despite her strong emphasis on the need to prevent violent crimes against women at home, Trotter is an outspoken opponent of the Violence Against Women Act, a law designed to aid women faced with domestic violence. In 2012, she wrote on the Independent Women’s Forum’s blog that VAWA infringed upon the rights of men who were falsely accused of domestic abuse. The law would also embolden “false accusers,” who would take “needed resources like shelters and legal aid … denying real victims of abuse access to these supports,” she wrote. Trotter and the forum characterized VAWA as “reckless demagoguery.”

VAWA=”reckless demagoguery.” Arguing for unrestricted guns at all costs so women can theoretically protect themselves in a legal world that Trotter hopes does not provide safeguards to women=”respectable commentary.” Gotcha.

Last night on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, he made Gayle Trotter look like that 150 point duck.

She was talking about her testimony, and the statement she submitted about women who defended themselves and their children with guns, and he kept asking her why she didn’t include any stories in which the women used assault weapons.

As it turns out, federal law places strict regulations on the types of firearms that can be used when hunting migratory birds, rules hunters have abided since the 1930s. Duck hunters are only allowed to use a shotgun, 10 gauge or smaller, that carries no more than three shells.

Not only that, but if you miss with all three shots, your hunting dog is legally required to laugh at you.

This jab only makes sense if you’re of the often expressed but entirely wrong opinion that the 2nd Amendment has anything at all to do with hunting. You’re describing hunting regulations; not gun regulations. It’s still perfectly legal to keep and bear shotguns holding more than three shells.

If the regulation refers to the gun, it’s a gun regulation. It might also be a hunting regulation, but it clearly puts restrictions on the gun, itself. Which most people with basic command of the English language would call a gun regulation.

Gun regulations and hunting regulations are not mutually exclusive concepts.

And of course, you skip over the obserbation that ducks are better-protected by these “hunting” regulations than people are, which was the real point of the remark.

Ah, yes, it does turn out to be illegal to murder people with a gun. I guess that must solve the problem then. Let’s just make sure people realize this, and everything will be OK.

Or we could maybe regulate the specifications and availablity of precision-engineered tools that have no purpose other than the mass slaughter of your fellow man, many of which are smaller, cheaper, lighter, better engineered, and more reliable than the computer on which I write this comment.

Ah, yes, it does turn out to be illegal to murder people with a gun. I guess that must solve the problem then. Let’s just make sure people realize this, and everything will be OK.

You point out how little regard criminals have for our laws against murder, and in your next paragraph suggest that laws against specific features on guns will accomplish something.

precision-engineered tools that have no purpose other than the mass slaughter of your fellow man

Holy shit, they’re precision-engineered? What purpose did that modifier serve other than to cloud an argument with emotion? I’ll assume you’re referring to the AR-15, which wasn’t designed for mass slaughter any more than any other semiautomatic weapon designed for personal defense. This might sound shocking to you, but AR-15’s are great for home defense. They’re low recoil, modular, and the .223 penetrates much less drywall and pine than a shotgun or hunting rifle, or even many pistol rounds.

many of which are smaller, cheaper, lighter, better engineered, and more reliable than the computer on which I write this comment.

What does this even mean? My shotgun should be more expensive, heavier, and *less* reliable than my PC? I don’t even…

I’ll assume you’re referring to the AR-15, which wasn’t designed for mass slaughter any more than any other semiautomatic weapon designed for personal defense.

Oh blow it out your ass. The military certainly didn’t adopt the M-16 because it was less lethal than the alternatives. And before you go on about how M-16 has a three round burst mode and the AR-15 doesn’t, know that the Marine Corps has maintained for decades that the combat effective rate of fire for an M-16 is 12-15 rounds per minute. It terms of lethality, the AR-15 and the M-16 are the same goddamn weapon, and I’m sick of people pretending otherwise.

The AR-15 is plenty lethal. Which is an important quality one looks for when choosing a hunting/personal defense weapon. I don’t understand gun-control advocates’ insistence that people protect themselves with guns that aren’t lethal.

I just take issue with the notion that the platform was designed specifically for mass slaughter, as if it has no other purpose. A gun that is effective at stopping two or three armed men from entering your bedroom will always, unfortunately, also be effective at murdering unarmed kids.

And I’d like to hear how an AR-15 is more-effective at killing innocent people than any other semi-automatic rifle.

Why are you hiding in your bedroom? You should be controlling the top of the stairs from cover. You can not protect your wife and kids while cowering under your bed.
Man up and dominate the battle space.

You point out how little regard criminals have for our laws against murder, and in your next paragraph suggest that laws against specific features on guns will accomplish something.

Criminals don’t manufacture guns. Federally-licensed gun deals are not, for the most part, criminals. Being criminal may make you desire a firearm that is illegal, but it won’t make that illegal product magically appear for you.

This might sound shocking to you, but AR-15′s are great for home defense.

Then you would have no problem finding a whole boat load of stories about them being used that way. Let us know how you do.

And to address your first point– it’s a regulation regarding what tool you’re allowed to use while hunting a specific type of game. It does nothing to infringe on people’s ability to keep and bear arms.

The summer before last was a bounty year for blackberries, so mini-Mal and I tried canning homemade blackberry jam. It didn’t quite work, but instead became a dozen jars of really excellent homemade blackberry syrup. And it is truly excellent on pancakes.

Every genocide in the last 100 years was preceded by gun registration, confiscation or both.

Every single one.

In addition, and key to the point, while mass-murder incidents like Sandy Hook are terrible, there are several facts that none of the “gun control” advocates are willing to discuss or debate. These are:

As a percentage of total homicides these incidents are a tiny percentage of the whole. Fewer than 100 homicides are “mass shooting” incidents a year. There are over 11,000 homicides a year in the United States. Therefore, gun control advocates are playing on emotions; they are attempting to use events that total less than one percent of the annual homicides for political purpose.

Not one of the proposals made thus far would have prevented Sandy Hook. Adam Lanza stole the firearms he used and murdered their owner, his mother. He also possessed multiple firearms, including a common shotgun. Had one of the weapons not been present, he had three others from which to choose. Nor would a magazine size restriction have mattered; Harris and Klebold committed their massacre while said ban was in effect and they simply carried more magazines, reloading multiple times.

Further, Harris and Klebold intended to commit their mass-murder using bombs. They used firearms as a backup when the bombs failed to explode. The materials they used to construct those bombs were ordinary civilian propane tanks; items that do not require a background check or license to purchase, fill, store or use.

It is also a fact that nearly all of these “mass shooters” are or were (in the very recent past prior to the event) on some sort of psychotropic medication. It it is also the case that nearly all of these assailants are teens or young men under the age of 25. The drugs companies warn of side effects in a small fraction of these drug users, especially in persons under the age of 25, that could include extreme rage. While that fraction is very small, when you have over 20 million users, even a “bad outcome” rate of 0.1% results in creating 20,000 rage monsters! This should be the focus of the debate: is this an acceptable price for the alleged benefits that these psychotropic drugs provide in this age group?

It is also a fact that when you dial 911 the police will be there in a few minutes, and that a thug requires only seconds to kill you and your loved ones. There is only one means available to deter someone who intends to use deadly force upon your person: to meet their force with equal or greater response.

The United States was founded on the premise that all persons are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, including the right to life. The government therefore has no right to prohibit your use of defensive weaponry of any sort to deter someone who would take your life by force. That is the premise of the Second Amendment, and any infringement of that right is a per-se violation of your rights.

And whenever any Form of Government becomes tyrannical, it is the Right and the Duty of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Well some Jews were armed. But, they tended to be in well organized military units like the Soviet army or partisan units in Belarus, Poland, Yugoslavia, and France. However, I can find no logical connection what so ever between Jewish partisans during WWII and arguments about gun control in the US today.

Was there a lot of private ownership in Rwanda before 1994? I do not think it would have mattered. But, I have not read anything that suggested there was. I am thinking if there was most of them would have been owned by the dominant Hutu majority who would have then used them to kill the Tutsi minority. Instead right before the genocide there is a massive importation of cheap mass produced machetes which were the main weapon used in the genocide.

Well the CUP did disarm all Armenian men in the Ottoman army and send them to forced labor detachments in 1915. This was one of the first steps in the genocide before the mass deportations. I do not think this proves anything about gun control in the US, however, even if the Armenian soldiers had managed to stage a successful mutiny before being disarmed.

As I commented elsewhere here I do not think there were a lot of private guns floating around Rwanda in 1994 otherwise the Hutu militias would have killed more people by shooting as opposed to using machetes.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You got a problem with Black Agenda Report? Out with it then.

Or is it with the book the article is based on? The one written by this guy?

Edmund S. Morgan is the Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, and the American Academy’s Gold Medal. The author of The Genuine Article; American Slavery, American Freedom; Benjamin Franklin; and American Heroes, among many others, Morgan lives with his wife in New Haven.

And you apparently missed the link within that to the original source of the argument. you know, the thing you were complaining about not having access to? the thing you would have appreciated having were you actually as interested in a good faith discussion as you claimed to be?

Edmund Morgan’s book American Slavery, American Freedom is in fact a classic and major historical study. The linked article discusses it, but just go ahead and dismiss any idea discussed by black people.

The site is poorly designed, and boldly proclaims that all its content is from the perspective of the left. I apologize for dismissing it. I’m certain you all would take at face value information hosted by a cite that proclaims to provide “news, commentary, & analysis from the right,” right?

The site is poorly designed, and boldly proclaims that all its content is from the perspective of the left. I apologize for dismissing it. I’m certain you all would take at face value information hosted by a cite that proclaims to provide “news, commentary, & analysis from the right,” right?

It’s a book review, you twit. Do you think “Black Agenda Report” is lying about the existence of a book?

So if gun ownership is a defence against murderous racism, who exactly are these old white Republicans trying to defend themselves against?

If we’re talking about myths in this whole argument, let’s look at how many people are murdered by friends or family rather than random strangers. how often someone is injured or killed by their own gun. how many women die as a result of domestic violence.

The singular premise that undergirds the second amendment is that a controlling segment of the founding generation had a certain level of mistrust of the concept of a standing army, and did not want to grant the newly established central government the power to unilaterally create one at the expense of the states.

Why? Because the major responsibility of state militias was responding to local insurrections. One need not wonder what kind of “local insurrections” these men were so feared; the proponents of this argument were uniformly Southern planters, and particularly those of Virginia, of which the population was approximately 40% slave at the time of ratification.

As Patrick Henry remarked at the ratification convention:

“[Article I, Section 10] says, that “no state shall engage in war, unless actually invaded.” If you give this clause a fair construction, what is the true meaning of it? What does this relate to? Not domestic insurrections, but war. If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress insurrections. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress. The 4th section of the 4th article expressly directs that, in case of domestic violence, Congress shall protect the states on application of the legislature or executive; and the 8th section of the 1st article gives Congress power to call forth the militia to quell insurrections: there cannot, therefore, be a concurrent power. The state legislatures ought to have power to call forth the efforts of the militia, when necessary. Occasions for calling them out may be urgent, pressing, and instantaneous. The states cannot now call them, let an insurrection be ever so perilous, without an application to Congress. So long a delay may be fatal.”

Emphasis mine. The concern was that the Constitution, as written, bound states like Virginia from quelling slave insurrections because they needed the permission and coordination of Congress to do it. More paranoid members of the Slave Power feared this would amount to backdoor abolitionism. Madison himself didn’t see the problem, mostly owing to the fact that he did not consider slave insurrections to be actual insurrections against the domestic government. But needing to placate the concerns of anti-Federalist Planters, the Second Amendment was adopted as a compromise; to satisfy the need of Congress to create an army, and the need of certain states to maintain their slave patrols.

The absolutists want to write off the “well regulated militia” part of the amendment as mere surplusage. It doesn’t modify anything and certainly is not meant in any way to limit the right to bear arms.

But if that’s the case, then what is the justification for prohibiting convicts or the mentally ill from possessing firearms? There is simply no logical way that you can ignore the “well regulated militia” but then insist – as they do, in addition to the Supreme Court – that there is a power to dispossess criminals and the mentally ill from possessing guns.

And for that matter, once you accept there is no right to proscribe gun ownership (including type and function – like assault weapons and magazine capacity), then how can you justify the prohibition on machine guns? Or rocket launchers? Or tactical nuclear weapons?

There is simply no logical way that you can ignore the “well regulated militia” but then insist – as they do, in addition to the Supreme Court – that there is a power to dispossess criminals and the mentally ill from possessing guns.

There certainly is a way to accept an honest interpretation of the 2nd while still keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. The right to bear arms is in fact an unlimited individual right just as any other right enumerated in #1-8. That doesn’t mean it’s unlimited in the face of others’ rights, though. It’s obvious that WMD (“ordinance” as opposed to “arms”) pose an immediate and real threat to the lives of others, so they are regulated. As are weapons in the hands of mentally unstable people. Individually-served weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens, however, are demonstrably a significantly lesser threat to other’s security, and to regulate them would be comparable to prior restraint of any of the other freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights.

Not to mention the fact that setting aside all constitutional issues, the proposed regulations are just terrible policy.

The right to bear arms is in fact an unlimited individual right just as any other right enumerated in #1-8.

Which is why religions are free to practice human sacrifice, police never ever fail to get a search warrant, we never hold people for years before trial without bail, and we have strictly prohibited contacts where one party requires the other to waive jury trial.

If you guys are toying with me, then I really wish you all would take the gloves off.

No one has rebutted my mainstream, Supreme Court-approved argument that the individual rights enumerated in #1-8 are unlimited until they infringe on others’ rights, and that there’s a solid argument to be made that personal ownership of WMDs qualify as such an infringement, but semi-automatic weapons don’t.

It was following this argument that the non sequiturs and pancakes started.

I’ve made my case, and the rebuttals have been dismissive non sequiturs and talk of pancakes.

Spewing unsupported assertions is not making a case, it is bullshitting. When and if you provide actual empirical research to back up any of your bullshit we will listen. Otherwise, we just muck out the stall and toss you on the compost heap.

You’re arguing that regulating which weapons you can use to hunt federally-protected game is equivalent to banning certain weapons.

It is your logic which sucks. Regulating which weapons you can use to hunt is the same as regulating which kinds of weapons are suitable for civilian use. It is also the case that the Supreme Court agrees with me that we can regulate the latter, since they have upheld the 1938 regulation of fully automatic weapons, and nobody is going to give you the right to own a Sherman tank or a rocket launcher.

Intriguingly, this is not what the most recent Supreme Court decisions seem to say.

There are limitations to the Second Amendment, explicitly listed in Heller. The rationale for those limitations appears nowhere in the discussion. It merely says that the govt has historically limited who can hold weapons, and what types they can hold, and that’s fine.

So you need to be directing your complaints to a certain Justice Scalia. It’s his argument, for what it’s worth.

It is certainly not at all what the court says in Oregon v. Smith (with which I am quite familiar). Indeed, it is quite the reverse, since the court holds that Oregon had the right to fire Smith for his perfectly legal practice of his state sanctioned religion because the law in question does not specifically target that religion.

The right to bear arms is in fact an unlimited individual right just as any other right enumerated in #1-8.

The entire body of free speech jurisprudence would like to have a word with you about how “unlimited” the First Amendment is.

Individually-served weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens, however, are demonstrably a significantly lesser threat to other’s security, and to regulate them would be comparable to prior restraint of any of the other freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights.

You might be surprised by the ways that government is allowed to regulate speech. And more importantly, determining the constitutionality of a speech regulation is far more nuanced than the black-and-white line you’re drawing for gun regulations. You have to consider what sort of regulation you’re looking at (is it content-based; is it a time, place, or manner regulation; does it cover commercial speech?), how strong a government interest the regulation serves, and how narrowly the regulation is tailored to that interest.

So my question is, given that we have an established rubric for allowing some sorts of speech regulations without imposing tyranny on the masses, what would be wrong with applying the same analysis to gun regulations?

I shouldn’t have said “never” in reference to how often speech limitations pass strict scrutiny. That’s totally a point for you if you’re keeping score, but I gave an argument for why the two exceptions you posed don’t apply to the 2nd Amendment.

Content-based is most-relevant when discussing a blanket ban on specific types/features of guns, and content-based bans on speech never pass strict scrutiny.

Why is banning specific features or types of guns more like a content-based restriction, rather than a time/place/manner restriction? It’s not at all obvious that the correct analogy is “types of guns=types of speech.”

There is simply no logical way that you can ignore the “well regulated militia” but then insist – as they do, in addition to the Supreme Court – that there is a power to dispossess criminals and the mentally ill from possessing guns.

The First Amendment contains a facially absolute prohibition on laws restricting freedom of association and petitioning of government, but laws infringing the free association and petition rights of felons and the mentally ill have been upheld for decades, so I’m not clear on why you think blue-penciling out the preamble from the Second Amendment would lead to categorically precluding laws restricting felons and the mentally ill from owning firearms. (It should also be pointed out that there are many hardcore Second Amendment supporters who would actually support repealing restrictions on possession of firearms by at least felons.)

Well, Scalia has said that it protects only the right to carry arms–see the word, “bear.” So, no artillery, tanks, jet fighters, etc., unless you can lift them. As for nukes, well, it depends on how small they are. And anthrax, hell, anyone can carry that.

I hope Farley will do a post or BHTV discussion about how likely it is that a bunch of gun-toting civilians could deter a genocidal state/military. I have a tough time believing that the US military, determined to follow orders of genocide from some (current or future, definitely Democratic and most likely brown-skinned) President, would be quaking in their boots at the prospect of facing those wily Wolverine Freedom Fighters. If anything I would think that from a genocidal perspective, having the entire populace armed would simply serve as cart-blanche on who you can claim you were justified in killing.

The other thing, besides just (!) firepower and organization and discipline and training, is the surveillance capacities of the US govt. It’s as if these guys don’t think the gummit will track *their* locations via their cell phones because shut up that’s why

I’m gonna perhaps be overly fair and say that an armed insurgency supported by the local population would, probably, deter the U.S Army quite a bit.

The Afghans and Iraqis have had us running in circles for years. We controlled both countries within weeks of invading but haven’t managed to pacify either after a decade plus.

Having said that, if we ever reached such a state in the U.S, civil society will have broken down so completely that the availability of weapons to insurgent fighters will 1) be the least of their concerns, and 2) not be their best weapon anyway. They’d want to be using IEDs and other such things.

Yeah, but we don’t have anything like the social structure of the Afghans and the Iraqis. They can put their lives on the line along with extended family and tribe alliances. Not so much here in highly mobile and atomized America. Riffing on this NYT piece I put it like this at my place:

gun ownership reflects and exacerbates the fragmentation of society into paranoid atomized households, thereby undercutting the solidarity that would be needed for organized resistance. … if you can’t trust your neighbors enough not to be armed, how are you going to trust them in resistance to the full power of the American surveillance / security / military state?

Alright, Hugo, please provide a concrete analysis of how exactly the private arms of the American people are going to allow effective resistance to the full might of the American military /security / law enforcement system. Consider geography, social structure, and the ability to communicate effectively given the surveillance capacities of the US government. Be specific and avoid facile analogies to situations like Afghanistan and Iraq, but instead focus on contemporary realities here at home.

One bunker buster and some daisy-cutters on their compound and revolution over. What is delusional is thinking that there is any kind of widespread support for this horseshit. Hell, even half of those who advocate it would go hide under the bed if it ever actually happened.

Not really. no.
The Continental Army was barely able to exist, much less function; at any given point, a third of the infantry were absent. It wasn’t until the French showed up to train and equip colonial forces that they were able to start making real headway.
Side note, I get irked when people list any other country but France as our longest-term ally. Aside from some tangential Napoleonic scuttlebutt, we’ve always been on pretty good terms with them.

I’m gonna perhaps be overly fair and say that an armed insurgency supported by the local population would, probably, deter the U.S Army quite a bit.

The Afghans and Iraqis have had us running in circles for years. We controlled both countries within weeks of invading but haven’t managed to pacify either after a decade plus.

The US Army would have a much easier time pacifying a domestic insurgency for the following reasons:

1) no language barrier; everyone speaks English
2) civilian law enforcement already exists and is much more efficient and much less corrupt
3) vast majority of the population would support the government rather than the insurgents
4) no cross-border sanctuaries or foreign support for insurgents
5) no established resistance movement – no structure or hierarchy
6) permanently operating factors in their favour: more moderate climate, better roads, better physical infrastructure generally
7) extensive established information infrastructure: census, population records, criminal records, phone data, etc
8) predominantly cracker insurgency very unlikely to gain support in urban areas where modern insurgency tactics are most effective

Every entity is going to have its share of false accusers, corrupt enforcers, and so on. No policy is immune from that. But you don’t punish the other 95% who are using it honestly over it. Babies and bathwater and all.

Or we realize that gun arrests are a symptom of the War (on Some People Who Use Some Classes of) Drugs, and that doesn’t actually change the fact that gun violence is actually a bad thing, that restricting guns would ameliorate.

If you ask me, this rush to gun control makes me wonder if liberals actually care about the drug war.

What rush to gun control?

It’s 1.5 months since Sandy Hook, which was the last of several such mass killings in 2012. Which happen every year. Federal hearings are just starting up about various proposals for legislative action.

That’s a long way from debating and passing any actual gun control legislation, as you well know.

So what rush am I supposed to be seeing here, that allows you to make inaccurate broadbrush statements about the topic du jour?

The grassroots gun control movement in my city is almost entirely black; they’re the ones pushing things like limiting handgun purchases to one a month. I know of many black people who argue that the drug war is racist; are there black people making that argument about gun control?

Except that the actual evidence shows that most gang violence involves handguns and shotguns. Rifles are not significant, though there was a time when machine pistols (Mac-10s and Uzis) had a minor role.